P&O Nedlloyd

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which is generally referred to simply as P&O, was a British shipping and logistics company that goes way back to the early 19th century and stayed mainly a shipping company for the initial 140 years of its continuation. Some time in the 1970s, it started to diversify to [...]

Recent Articles

PONL Heritage Group
One of the The PONL Heritage Group’s goals is to present a foundation for previous P&O Nedlloyd personnel / members to keep in touch with each other. Two apparatus have been employed to enable people to contact each other, share updates, and so on: LinkedIn (Online Networking) and MSN Message Board. Moreover, the [...]

On May 2005, Maersk have stated its plans to buy P&O Nedlloyd for 2.3 billion euros. As P&O Nedlloyd was merging its accomplishments in industry-leading process excellence and top international system execution, which was seen in a share increase from 9 euro to 57 euro in only 2 years, the shareholders were concerned at the [...]

In the year 2004, P&O Nedlloyd developed eCommerce Innovation into Asia with Red Square. Youship trans-Tasman test market achievements have resulted in developments in Asia. Red Square, a top Australian full-service Internet agency, have stated that the world’s first online booking and transaction solution for the shipping industry, designed and created for P&O Nedlloyd, would [...]

Mergers carried on in the early 1990s. In 1991 P&O bought a half-share in Laing Properties, another top property concern. During that time, P&O bought the bulk of the Ellerman cargo shipping business from Cunard, providing it with over a quarter of the British share of container trades between Europe and Australasia, 100 percent of [...]

Rivalry from air travel resulted in the withdrawal of steady liner passenger services, with the concluding, scheduled journey to the Far East occurring in 1969. Passenger business now comprised of the cruises and ferry service. In 1974, P&O purchased Princess Cruises which then established the keystone of P&O’s wide-ranging business, enhanced by the 1988 acquisition [...]

In 1971 Ford Geddes succeeded as P&O chairman and managed a group comprising of 127 companies. Geddes actively organized a systematic overhaul of P&O’s constitution. The company was split into 5 divisions, which included passenger, bulk cargo, general cargo, a general holding company and European and air transport.

A considerable increase in shipbuilding costs and heightened overseas competition highlighted the postwar period. Also during this time was the end of the British Empire-India recovered its independence in 1947, instigating a sudden fall in the number of regular passengers including civil servants, soldiers and their families. P&O dealt with the new circumstance by redirecting [...]

At the occurrence of war, the tonnage of the P&O fleet was beyond 1.1 million grt. Over 500,000 grt were lost during aggressions, but by the conclusion of the war the P&O fleet endured at over 1.5 million grt. This expansion was accomplished by a highly insistent scheme of acquisition to ready P&O for the [...]

By 1910 P&O purchased the Blue Anchor Line, a company that focused on the transportation of general cargo and emigrants from the UK to Australia and of the Australian wool on the return trip. Until this time, P&O had focused on first class passenger trade. This acquisition provided P&O with an interest in every class [...]

In 1844 Anderson initiated the new idea of leisure cruising to Victorian Britain. In the beginning, the cruises operated in the Mediterranean Sea and included shore trips to Malta, Constantinople, Smyrna, Egypt and Jaffa. The Crimean War of the mid 1850s prevented cruising activities until the 1880s, when other companies acquired it. P&O only rejoined [...]

Stopped by the East India monopoly from running activities out of Bombay, the most suitable port of call, P&O carried out to planning a service between Suez, Aden, Point de Galle, and Calcutta to associate with its service between England and Egypt. Prior to the inauguration of the Suez Canal, passengers to India had to [...]

In 1840 P&O was granted a contract to carry the mails to Alexandria, the major staging post in the transportation of mails to India. This contract was a precursor to the beginning of fast company growth, starting with the buying of 2 large ships, the Oriental and the Great Liverpool.

P&O was established through the awarding of the contract by the Admiralty for the carriage of the mail between England and the Iberian Peninsula in August of 1837. In 1815 Brodie McGhie Willcox launched a shipping agency and broker’s office in Lim Street, London, and hired Arthur Anderson as clerk. Anderson was positioned as a [...]

The establishment of P&O traditionally occurred in August of 1837, and derived from the awarding of the contract by the Admiralty for the carriage of the mail between the Iberian Peninsula and England. By 1840, the company transported mail from Falmouth and passengers from London to the Peninsular ports as distant as Gibraltar. Owned by [...]